


Drinking from an Empty Cup

by Arithanas



Category: Silence (2016)
Genre: All Saints' Day, Candles, M/M, Religious Guilt, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-09 20:41:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16456850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arithanas/pseuds/Arithanas
Summary: On the first day of the month of frost, Sebastião Rodrigues lit up a candle and drank from an empty cup.





	Drinking from an Empty Cup

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linguamortua](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linguamortua/gifts).



> _Réquiem ætérnam dona eis Dómine;_  
>  _et lux perpétua lúceat eis._  
>  _Requiéscant in pace._  
>  Amen

Okada-san sat in the veranda, on the first day of the month of frost of the second year of the Meireki era. He sighed and let his gaze wander in the spot where the sun sets.

After a while, his wife came and put a cup of tea within his reach. Without a word, as was her habit. Okada-san grunted and nodded, as he had seen many men do. As if that was the polite way to thank her, who slept in chastity by his side each night. She smiled and moved away with the soft rustle of fabric.

She never asked for anything. She kept his house in order and respectable for their neighbors. She, who was his legal wife, never demanded a thing of him. Not even good manners.

Alone with his thoughts, he sipped the piping hot tea. He swallowed the scalding liquid as if it were a penance. Garrupe would laugh at him if he knew how much the former Sebastião Rodrigues missed the rough touch of their cilice.

Only God knew if it was All Saints' Day, but Okada-san was in the mood for remembering his dearly departed. Garrupe in particular.

He put the empty cup in its dainty tray. He sighed again and pulled out from his sleeve one of the artisanal candles Inoue-san let him have from the last batch of imported goods. For his studies, he said with a scornful grin.

Okada-san lighted up the candle and fixed it to the wood with some drops of melting wax. The flame danced, wavered, almost as much as his faith. With a tired breath, Okada-san closed his eyes and recited in his heart the prayer for the deceased; he was too much of a coward to whisper the words, even in Latin.

He opened his eyes and noticed that, in the faint light of the candle, the shadows looked more ominous. Almost evil. Out of habit, to have something to do, to distract his mind from the shadow of the past, he extended his hand to pick up the teacup.

His fingers touched other fingers. Cold, thin fingers that still were shaking from deprivation and torture. Fingers that he had held before many times…

“I’m not gone,” Garrupe whispered in his ear, lifting the cup and  Sebastião’s fingers to his cold mouth to slurp a tea that wasn’t there anymore.

Okada-san’s felt his old friend’s lips and the phantom warmth of the drink and tears came to his eyes.

“How I regret...” Okada-san said in trembling voice. The lump in his throat choked the words. “How I regret never joining you in glorious martyrdom.”

“And who’s to tell you are not having yours as we speak?”

Garrupe let the cup go and, gently—oh, so gently!—pushed it, inviting Sebastião to drain the cup.

Okada-san sighed the last time before saying, unworthy and humbled, the same words He had said in Gethsemane: “...not as I will, but as you will.”

His wife would find him drinking from an empty cup later that first night of the month of frost.

**Author's Note:**

> Beta kindly provided by yopumpkinhead.


End file.
